Charles Ford Band – With Robben Mark & Pat Ford / Arhoolie CD-353

Description

Arhoolie CD 353

Robben Ford – guitar vocals & sax; Patrick Ford – drums; Mark Ford – harmonica; Stanley Poplin – bass. (Michael Osborn – rhythm guitar on track 3)

Originally released on Arhoolie LP-4005, plus 4 previously unissued tracks.

1. Blue And Lonesome
2. Gibson Creek Shuffle
3. My Time After Awhile
4. Rest My Mind On Jesus
5. Reconsider Baby
6. Black Night
7. Wild Woman
8. I Know What You’re Puttin’ Down
9. Live The Life I Love
10. Tell Him I Was Flyin’
11. The Promise

REVIEW

“As a band they were well worth preserving on record and twenty years on the results still sound impressive. Indeed the inclusion this time around of John Coltrane’s `The Promise’ reveals them to be an outfit of far greater vision and improvisational ability than certainly I’d realized. Robben Ford’s guitar has of course always broken down stylistic barriers and was doing so even then with great ease but I’m amazed how adaptable Mark’s harp proves to be here and how well Pat Ford fares both when laying down a backbeat and when dropping timely swing-laden bombs.

Mark is excellent on Robben’s ‘Gibson Creek’ a perky instrumental which he attacks like a horn player and on the long slow mournful blues of Walter Jacobs’ opener. ‘Black Night’ is in the same vein of course and Willie Dixon’s ‘Live the Life’ is far more sinuous in this previously unreleased reading than in the version which turned up on Mark and Robben’s recent Blue Rock’It CD. ‘Rest My Mind’ another Robben original is a terrific finger-popper and his performances of ‘Reconsider Baby’ (great harp here too!) and Albert King’s ‘Wild Woman’ are marvels of phrasing and technique.

It’s a very worthwhile re-release and with close to an hour’s playing time good value too. Thoroughly enjoyable in fact.”

(Paul Lewis — Blues & Rhythm)